Avatar star Sam Worthington has signed on to lead an untitled Netflix thriller that hails from Transsiberian director Brad Anderson, Collider has learned.
Formerly known as Fracture, the script was written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn). Worthington will play a family man who must find his courage and hold onto his sanity when his wife and daughter disappear in the middle of an ER visit.
Paul Schiff is producing along with Neal Edelstein and Mike Macari, and production is slated to begin later this year, so you can expect to see the film on Netflix in 2019. I personally dig these kinds of movies (the 1997 Kurt Russell film Breakdown comes to mind), so I'll be looking forward to seeing what Anderson and Worthington cook up together.
Worthington is coming off the best performance of his career in the limited series Manhunt: Unabomber, which saw him match wits with Paul Bettany. I was really impressed by his work on that show, and hope it's a sign of his ambitions as a dramatic actor. His notable recent features include Everest and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge. He's also set to reprise his heroic role as Jake Sully in James Cameron's four Avatar sequels, the first of which arrives in theaters on Dec. 18, 2020.
Anderson directed the cult classic Session 9 and the Christian Bale thriller The Machinist, as well as Halle Berry's recent box office hit The Call. He also directed the Titans pilot for DC's streaming service, and the Tony Gilroy-scripted drama Beirut starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike. That underseen film was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and will hopefully find its audience on VOD. He's repped by UTA and LBI Entertainment, while McElroy is repped by Writ Large. In addition to Wrong Turn, the scribe's feature credits include Spawn, the John Cena vehicle The Marine, and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
